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Rome: Sudan was ready to open Darfur peace talks next month with a cease-fire, Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir said yesterday during a high-profile visit to Italy that included talks with Pope Benedict XVI.
It was the first time Al Bashir had called for a ceasefire since the announcement last week of the UN-backed talks in Tripoli set to start October 27. A top rebel leader has demanded that hostilities end before negotiations can begin.
"We have announced we are willing [to put in place] a ceasefire with the start of the negotiations to create a positive climate," Al Bashir said at a news conference following talks with Italian Premier Romano Prodi.
"We hope that the negotiations in Tripoli will be the last ones and that they will bring a final peace," Al Bashir said, speaking through a translator.
The Vatican, in a statement about Al Bashir's audience with the pontiff, expressed its "strong" hope that that the Tripoli talks would help bring "an end to the sufferings and lack of security of these peoples, assuring them the humanitarian assistance to which they have a right" and allowing development projects to begin.
More than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been uprooted since ethnic African rebels in Darfur took up arms against the Sudanese government in 2003. Sudan's government is accused of retaliating by unleashing a militia of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed, a charge Khartoum denies.
Khartoum has regularly agreed to ceasefires but all have been quickly breached by the parties involved.
Rebel demands
Abdul Wahid Elnur, who leads a major faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement rebels, has said negotiations should not start until a ceasefire is in place and a planned UN-African Union joint peacekeeping force is on the ground. UN officials have said troops could start deploying in October for the 26,000-strong joint peacekeeping force.
Al Bashir said he had asked Prodi to push European countries hosting rebel leaders to pressure them to take part in the talks, mentioning particularly Elnur, who is based in Paris.
Prodi praised Al Bashir's offer of a ceasefire as "an important signal, a strong signal that I welcomed". Earlier in the week, Al Bashir's forces launched a major attack against Justice and Equality rebels in northern Darfur.
The Vatican said that Benedict and Al Bashir, aided by interpreters, spoke for 25 minutes at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo in Alban Hills southeast of Rome. Vatican spokesman the Reverend Federico Lombardi described the atmosphere during talks as "very respectful".
The Holy See's statement said that the two men spoke about the political and religious situation in Sudan and the importance for all believers, in particular Christians and Muslims, to work together in "the promotion of peace and the common good". Pope Benedict in the past has lamented the "horror" in Darfur.
Meeting Pope
There was concern among human rights groups about what the visit by Al Bashir, who came to power in 1989 in a military and Islamic coup, would achieve.
"The human rights situation in Sudan continues to be one of the most pressing humanitarian crises in the world today, and one to which the international community has failed for far too long to provide an effective response," Amnesty International said in a statement from its European Union office.
Against this background, Amnesty International finds it remarkable that the Italian government has decided to receive Al Bashir.
But actor and Darfur activist George Clooney said on Thursday that increased international contacts with Al Bashir could ease the plight of Darfur's people.
"The policy of not talking to them because they're unsavoury hasn't been very effective," Clooney said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
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